


this is a deathbed story

by playmaker



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: ??????? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Magic, Banter, First Meetings, Implied Death, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death, death isn’t permanent though??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 11:15:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playmaker/pseuds/playmaker
Summary: Andrew Minyard is as good as a ghost.Only this is a deathbed story, so Andrew Minyard isn’treallya ghost yet. Deathbed stories rarely begin with death- it's always at the end. He just tries to play the part, even if the shoe doesn’t quite fit right.





	this is a deathbed story

**Author's Note:**

> i was flexing with a.... wildly different writing style from my usual. ive been reading too many cat valente short stories.  
> its different, and weird, but just... roll with it, i guess? and let me know if you hate this style or not lmao. cant decide if im a fan or not. probably wont write in this style anymore though because meta usually only works for me in original pieces??

This is a deathbed story. Stories like this one always are. Always.

It’s like this: the Maker, God, Gods like plural, if that’s what you believe- whatever, point is, they’re all real, all of them, and they watch. They watch, and they gossip, and they make petty bets, but they don't ever meddle. It’s not the way. At least, not anymore.

There’s a boy, and he should’ve died, but he didn’t, so he lived. He lived, and now he wants to die, but he isn’t supposed to anymore, so he lives. Still, Andrew Minyard is as good as a ghost. He serves the world no purpose, just as the world does him, and there are no more deals to uphold. 

All he has left is the day to day- just surviving the next twenty-four hours time and time again.

To a man with no schedule and no attachments, every season is winter. 

Only this is a deathbed story, so Andrew Minyard isn’t  _ really _ a ghost, he just tries to play the part, even if the shoe doesn’t quite fit right.

He plays the ghost, and everyone else plays along. They play along because it’s written down, it’s what they understand. 

Neil Josten was a completely separate entity. He was a ghost trying desperately  _ not _ to be a ghost, and he’d never been the best at following a script, so Andrew Minyard tries to play the ghost, and Neil Josten doesn’t let him.

They meet like everyone does: as strangers. It’s weird to think about it like that, right? No matter how wildly unnatural any first meeting might seem, if you peel back all the layers, it’s all just the same. It’s like that for everything, but don’t think about it too hard, else you’ll start to think you’re just a drop in the ocean. 

They meet in a shop, as strangers. 

It was Mary’s shop, which means it’s Neil’s now- Abram, if you asked Mary, but you can’t ask the dead questions if they aren’t a main character. It’s one of the Rules, but those aren’t important in a deathbed story.

It’s Neil’s shop, and he’s stuck in there, and all the walls are hidden by impossibly old mirrors, ovular and traced in twirling gold designs. Some of them hang on walls, and some of them are kept upright in deep red oak stands. Strings of glass beads dangle from the corners of the mirrors, and ceramic bowls filled with herbs and crystals seem to float in thin air. 

The carpet is less carpet and more layer after layer of wildly coloured and designed tapestries littered over the floor haphazardly, held flat and creaseless by some unseen force. It smells of honey and chai and it’s always warm enough to be comforting, but you’d never feel the need to take your coat off. The ceiling is glass and the sky is always lit up with stars. The inky dark of the constant night looks so heavy, it’s as if the sky can’t contain it all. Often, when Neil forgets or remembers or dreams or thinks, sticky black rain will drip onto the glass ceiling from above. 

The stars don’t look real, sometimes. Neil thinks if he looks close enough, he’ll find that it’s just silver paint on the inside of the glass. He doesn’t want to look.

The door to the shop is locked from the inside, and Neil can’t leave. Not that way, at least. The door to the shop sits at the bottom of a steep flight of creaky stairs, anyway, and Neil always gets that heavy feeling in his legs when he looks at the bottom. It feels like cool knives and hot tears. It sounds like concrete walls and a chair bolted to the floor. It smells like the sick tang of metal and salty beads of sweat. It looks like a deathbed story. Like  _ his  _ deathbed story.

But this isn’t Neil’s death, it’s Andrew’s. Neil is already a ghost, and he’s the only ghost here, remember? Well, there’s Mary, but she’s not a main character, and there are Rules, and it isn’t  _ her _ deathbed story, either, so she doesn’t count.

Andrew Minyard doesn’t mean to go into the shop. No one does, but they always do.

The door is small, and it almost pisses Andrew off how it seems to be  _ just _ the right height for someone five feet tall. He goes in, because it almost pisses him off. He hasn’t  _ almost _ felt a thing in a long time.

He opens the door and a delicate bell jingles, but when he looks above the door, there’s no tinkling metal hanging from a tarnished chain. The door is still open. Andrew is holding it open as he looks up the stairs.

He can’t make out what’s at the top, and the stairwell is uncomfortably narrow. The dark wooden stairs have an olive green rug running down the center, and the walls of the hall are an almost threatening shade of wine. If he closes his eyes, he can smell cinnamon and jasmine and hear someone singing quietly.

Andrew Minyard doesn’t  _ know _ this is his deathbed story, but he knows he wants to be a ghost, so he steps in and lets the door close behind him. People who aren’t afraid of death or pain aren’t afraid of anything. There’s nothing left to be afraid of.

He climbs the stairs, listens as they creak under his boots. The singing stops, and footsteps come closer.

Andrew is halfway up the stairs when he sees him.

“We’re closed,” the boy says, his eyes frigid and cold and  _ dead _ . Andrew pauses, looks down the stairs, looks at the boy.

“The door was unlocked.”

“The door’s always unlocked.”

Andrew hums. “Sounds dangerous. Why don’t you lock it?”

The boy frowns, grabs his forearms behind his back. He’s wearing a long sleeve shirt the same colour as the rug on the stairs and faded jeans with a hole in one knee.

“Why are you still here?”

Andrew regards the boy, trying to decide if telling the truth would be troublesome.

“I have nowhere else to be,” he says, his tone general, as if the boy had asked for the time.

“You could go anywhere. Why don’t you?”

The boy is scowling at him, as if having nowhere wasn’t an excuse to be here.

“I did,” Andrew answers, finally continuing up the stairs, pushing past the boy into the shop. “I could go anywhere, so I came here.”

The boy stands there stunned for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected Andrew to brush against him.

“You’re dead,” he says, arms falling to his side.

Andrew tilts his head. “As good as, but a doctor would tell you otherwise. Why am I dead?”

The boy blinks, a small frown on his face. He shakes his head. Andrew shrugs and turns away, blandly studying the rows of mirrors. He looks up just as two black raindrops splat heavily against the glass ceiling.

“It’s ten in the morning,” he points out. “And those stars are fake.”

“I know,” the boy says, coming to stand next to Andrew and look up at the ceiling. He stands close enough that their elbows brush and Andrew pretends not to notice the way the boy shivers at the contact. “Time is different here.”

“Thought so. So, you’re a witch?”

The boy laughs. Magic wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t exactly common anymore. 

“Not really. I used to be, I guess. My mom was too, but she’s dead.” He turns to Andrew. “I’m Neil.”

Andrew turns his head slightly and looks at Neil. “Andrew,” he replies.

Neil nods, and turns back to the glass ceiling. 

They both stare in for awhile, the silence broken a few minutes later by the sound of Andrew digging into his pockets. He pulls out a slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes and a black lighter. Neil frowns.

“Are you seriously going to light a smoke in my shop?”

“Yes,” Andrew replies, slightly muffled by the cigarette already dangling between his lips. “Want one?”

Neil huffs, taking a cigarette from the extended pack, lightly brushing his fingers against Andrew’s. They’re cold.

“You’re dead,” Andrew says, handing Neil his lighter. It’s not a question, nor is it surprised.

Neil nods.

“Figures. Am I dying?”

“I think so. Most people who come in here die, anyway, so it’s not your fault. The magic here is absolute and I can’t control it anymore since I’m… well, not alive. The shop consumes people. Their memories. They see things in the mirrors and they go crazy. The sky up there? It’s made out of nightmares.”

Andrew nods slowly, exhaling a stream of smoke into the air only for it to dissipate immediately, the faint scent of jasmine covering the tobacco.

“Is there where your mom is?” he asks, nodding to the inky sky.

Neil nods. “She could’ve stayed. She didn’t want to live in the shop with me after my magic manifested. I think I scared her. Too much like my father.”

“Where’s he? Your dad?”

“He didn’t die in the shop. He’s definitely gone, though.”

Silence lapses between the two of them and Neil shivers.

“Why don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

Andrew crushes his cigarette under his boot, grinding it into nonexistence into the makeshift carpet.

“My family- my brother and my cousin, they forgot me. I made them. I know a witch, and I made her make them forget me. I kept my promises and didn’t feel like making anymore, so I left.”

“You could still go  _ anywhere _ though,” Neil says, almost desperate, every fiber of his body radiating envy.

“Are you trapped here?” Andrew asks bluntly, ignoring the way Neil flinches at the question.

“Maybe. I don’t know, I’ve never tried to leave. The door is locked from the inside, but there’s a tunnel that my mom made, just in case my father found us. I’m dead, so I can’t open it.”   
“I’m not dead,” Andrew says. “I could.”

“You aren’t dead  _ yet _ . If you opened it, it would kill you. You aren’t a witch, so you need to exchange something more valuable than magic. Witches work in exchanges.”

“You said I was dying anyway.”

“Yes, but-”

“Do you want to leave? I’m saying I’ll take you somewhere else.”

Neil’s mouth snaps closed. He stares at Andrew for a long time, his own cigarette suffocated and forgotten between loose fingers.

“Why?” he finally asks, searching Andrew’s eyes from an explanation. They’re gold, just like the mirror frames.

“You’re no good at playing dead. I want to make a deal.”

Neil laughs, shaking his head and looking at the twisting black of the nightmare scene above.

“I thought you said you were done with promises?”

“A deal and a promise are different. I’ll get you out of this shop, and you’ll take me somewhere interesting. I’ve been a lot of places though, so it might take a few tries to find somewhere I don’t hate.”

A pause, heavy and full of questions.

“Welll?” Andrew prompts when Neil doesn’t say anything.

Tentatively, Neil smiles.

“Deal.”

  
(Andrew Minyard  _ does _ end up dying, because this is a deathbed story, but you already knew that. Andrew knew, too. He opens the tunnels and it tears him apart, stops his heart, and Neil watches. Still, there are afterlife stories, too. It’s the Rules. Nothing ends with death. Nothing ends at all.)

**Author's Note:**

> done, posted, and now im gonna pretend i never wrote this because its so out of my own writing scope. theres probably mistakes, sorry


End file.
